Voters reward Bukele for gang crackdown that has transformed security in central American country
El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, has won a thumping victory in elections after voters cast aside concerns about erosion of democracy to reward him for a fierce gang crackdown that transformed security in the central American country.
Thousands of Bukele’s supporters clad in cyan blue and waving flags thronged San Salvador’s central square to celebrate his re-election, which the 42-year-old leader termed a “referendum” on his government.
Bukele declared himself the winner before official results were announced, claiming to have attained more than 85% of the vote. Provisional results showed Bukele winning 83% support with 31% of the ballots counted.
His New Ideas party is expected to win almost all of the 60 seats in the legislative body, tightening its grip on the country and bestowing Bukele, the most powerful leader in El Salvador’s modern history, with even more sway.
Everyone here is acting like a dictatorship is worse than gangland anarchy, it’s not. Nor has he reached dictator status, yet.
That DOESN’T mean dictators are good, or that this can’t get worse, but context matters.
I’m really hoping he can build the stability required for a multiparty democracy. He’ll probably bring stability, but I don’t know about being able to transfer power later.
If he doesn’t, and he retains power, only then are we at a dictatorship.
Duarte wasn’t a dictator, but that doesn’t change the fact that he oversaw an epic extrajudicial bloodbath during his term.
Point is, words matter and there are plenty of impactful words to describe the situation in El Salvador that are accurate, let’s use those ones.
won a thumping victory in elections after voters cast aside concerns about erosion of democracy to reward him for a fierce gang crackdown
That collection of words is just the gift that keeps on giving of awful!
His New Ideas party is expected to win almost all of the 60 seats in the legislative body, tightening its grip on the country and bestowing Bukele, the most powerful leader in El Salvador’s modern history, with even more sway.
Not a big fan of this either. Sounds like it’s only a matter of time before he becomes a de facto dictator if he isn’t one already.
Even a benevolent dictator is still a dictator.
Not sure Bukele is a dictator. We’ll know once there are new problems to solve that might require a new leader
El Salvador tears down the Reconciliation Monument, a symbol of the end of a bloody civil war that took place between 1980 and 1992, which President Nayib Bukele branded “unsightly” and an apology for pacts between the left and right. “It was a monument to corruption,” says Public Works Minister Romeo Rodriguez.
Shit is getting dangerously close to the fan when a society starts to demolish their monuments.
I agree, I’m also ashamed that my country has been tearing down our monuments. They’re real historical and shit to, going back a couple hundred years I reckon.
Well, they were only put up in the last century, but they celebrated the lives of men from the 1800s.
Yessir, a real impressive group of guys, a confederation of great men, if you will.
And like you said, when countries tear down their monuments, it’s a real bad sign. I couldn’t agree more, that is a universal truth.
Almost had me in the first half!
You’re right. The confederate statues did cross my mind when I was typing my post, and I do think destroying them would be a shame.
Even watching statues of such dispecable people as Stalin or Saddam being torn down always made me feel kind of a dread.
While trying to rationalize the feeling I came up with few ideas.
- One does not destroy art. It’s like burning books. Unexcusable.
- What if they forget, how even the artists has been manipulated to celebrate monsters? -If someone is willing to show such violence towards a symbol today, what stops them from mowing people left and right tomorrow?
What’s even more fucked up in case of el salvador, is that the statue was there to commemorate the end of the war. If a person has no respect towards a symbol of peace, however ugly it might subjectively be, how much respect does he have towards the peace itself?
The Confederate statues were errected during the Jim Crow era, and memorializing those men wasn’t their primary purpose. It was to remind those uppity coloreds that they were still living in the white man’s world, and they best not forget that, or their place in it.
I can’t speak to the specifics of the monuments taken down in El Salvador, and whether their destruction more closely mirrors Nazi book burnings, or the destruction of Jim Crow Confederate statues.
My point, sarcastic as it was, was that the tearing down of monuments should be judged on their own individual merits, because there isn’t one right answer.
He got voted in and just got re-elected.
Unless we have evidence of a rigged election, then no, he’s not a dictator.
Funnily enough, locking up violent criminals is a vote winner. Who knew?!
I agree with everything you said, until the end, but only because it’s inaccurate.
He’s casting a very wide net, that a lot of innocent people have been caught in.
Now, given the circumstances that might be understandable, and it seems that a majority of their voting citizens believe that’s an acceptable cost.
I’m not going to cast any moral judgement on them for that, but I think we should be honest about the totality of his policies.
We shouldn’t lie and call him a dictator, but we also shouldn’t lie and say that only criminals have been caught up in his policing actions.
He deserves the win.
There are some uncomfortable questions about his approach to neutralizing gangs but there’s no doubt that what he did is working.
I wonder in the long term if it’ll continue to work and maybe one day we’ll learn how many innocents got caught in such a wide net.
There are some uncomfortable questions about his approach to neutralizing gangs but there’s no doubt that what he did is working.
Big “Mussolini made the trains run on time” energy 😬
Well, in multiple ways, really.
There’s an uncomfortable fundamental truth that people will generally prefer a seemingly peaceful dictatorship that doesn’t negatively affect them personally over ostensibly democratic chaos and violent anarchy, even if plenty of other innocents get caught up in the mess. I honestly don’t know if I can say that that’s fundamentally wrong, and I’m not in any real position to comment on it because I have no idea what it’s like to be terrified every time I leave my house (El Salvador had a higher murder rate than active war zones), but that doesn’t change the fact that this is one incredibly slippery slope. It takes a very wise and benevolent person to wield that level of power in a fair and just way, and Bukele doesn’t exactly inspire confidence there. More than anything, I’m just thankful that I don’t have to make these kinds of decisions.
As someone who lived many years in Latin America, including one of the very dangerous countries, it’s not great. We make do, ingrain a bunch of precautions, and it becomes normal but it sucks.
Plus El Salvador had gangs that would randomly shoot civilians just as an initiation/show of force so it’s not even like you can make proper decisions to stay out of trouble.
I can see people choosing easily. There was an interview with a mother whose kid was allegedly wrongly imprisoned and even she agreed Bukele was doing the right thing (it was obviously a cherry-picked example but still…).
Civil rights are essential but their situation was horrendous.
I just can’t think of a better solution to their situation but I’m not saying there isn’t one. From the scars of their actual civil war in the past, gangs fermented in the USA and then sent back to a small country not equipped to handle them. It’s one of those situations that just got so bad that it’s hard to argue against strong authoritarian moves but what what else could have stopped the killings?
The country certainly needed a timeout from the murders but it needs to come back to normal on civil rights after this big move. Hopefully, these emergency provisions don’t overstay their welcome to keep a select few in power.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, has won a thumping victory in elections after voters cast aside concerns about erosion of democracy to reward him for a fierce gang crackdown that transformed security in the central American country.
Thousands of Bukele’s supporters clad in cyan blue and waving flags thronged San Salvador’s central square to celebrate his re-election, which the 42-year-old leader termed a “referendum” on his government.
His New Ideas party is expected to win almost all of the 60 seats in the legislative body, tightening its grip on the country and bestowing Bukele, the most powerful leader in El Salvador’s modern history, with even more sway.
New Ideas’ electoral success means Bukele will wield unprecedented power and be able to overhaul El Salvador’s constitution, which his opponents fear will result in scrapping of term limits.
Polls showed most voters wanted to reward Bukele for decimating the crime groups that made life intolerable in El Salvador and fuelled waves of migration to the United States.
A firebrand politician who often spars with foreign leaders and critics on social media, Bukele came to power in 2019 trouncing traditional parties with a vow to eliminate gang violence and rejuvenate a stagnant economy.
The original article contains 871 words, the summary contains 200 words. Saved 77%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
